American prisons have replaced now-shuttered state mental hospitals as a place to warehouse the mentally ill, our colleagues Gary Fields sand Erica Phillips (@EEPhillips_WSJ) report. The country’s three biggest jail systems have more than 11,000 prisoners under treatment on any given day; by comparison, the three largest state-run mental hospitals have a combined 4,000 beds. [WSJ]

Newtown parent Rob Cox wonders if Generation Lockdown — the school kids now being drilled in case a shooter invades their classrooms — will be the ones who eventually get Congress to pass stricter gun-control laws. [Reuters]

The much-ballyhooed 21-hour soliloquy Sen. Ted Cruz mustered on the Senate floor in an attempt to defund Obamacare could have strong ripple effects in politics in his home state of Texas, energizing grass-roots conservatives in the nation’s large Republican donor state and making it harder for Republicans in the state legislature to compromise. [Associated Press]

Kaveh Waddell (@kavehewaddell) writes that Iranian President Hasan Rouhani‘s decision not to stage a handshake meeting with President Barack Obama this week at the United Nations is actually a good sign that he is serious about outreach to the U.S. Such a symbolic move might have alienated the conservatives in government back home, which Rouhani didn’t want, while he is allowing more substantive but less splash conversations with the West to unfold. [The Atlantic]

Israeli columnist Bradley Burston (@bradleyburston) complains that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a bitter man given to blasts of cynicism and an obstacle to whatever hope there is of peace with the Palestinians. [Haaretz]

David Corn (@DavidCornDC) says whether by design or luck, President Obama has succeeded in putting Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the hook for Bashar al-Assad‘s chemical weapons and put Speaker John Boehner on the hook for avoiding a government shutdown. “It takes discipline to stand back and not get in the way when an opponent is self-immolating,” he writes. [Mother Jones]

Former White House economist Jared Bernstein (@econjared) says Republicans’ attempt to scale back the food-stamp program proceeds from a mistaken idea that the recent rise in food-stamp rolls is an indication the program isn’t working right: “What’s not working right now is the low-wage job market, and punishing the victims of that underperforming sector with these harsh, radical changes to the SNAP program will only deepen their poverty.” [On the Economy]

In their effort to relive the Reagan era by copying his particular policies — on taxes, for instance — rather than his success at developing policies that applied conservative principles to the problems of his day, today’s Republicans risk becoming detached from the country’s real concerns, says Yuval Levin. [Weekly Standard]

The U.K. economy is growing again — up by 1.3% year over year — but it remains 3.3% smaller, adjusted for inflation, than it was before the financial crisis. [Reuters]

Adjusted for inflation, U.S. household net worth is about 4% below its peak; households have made back about 80% of what they lost during the recession. [WSJ]

State and local revenue from income taxes in the second quarter was up 18.2% from the second quarter of last year. [Census]

As of Wednesday, 43 ventures had filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission taking advantage of new rules that allow some firms to advertise or use social media to raise capital from investors. [WSJ]

Support for the tea party has reached some of its lowest levels yet, a Gallup poll found. Some 22% say they back the party — a 10-point drop since November 2010. [Gallup]

The amount of electricity generated by natural gas dropped 14% in the first seven months of 2013, as power generated by coal rose 7.5%, according to government data. [WSJ]

Those dying in the poorest 10% of countries receive 1/5,000 as much pain medication as in U.S. and Canada. [Huffington Post]

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.